Losing Skye
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: The night that Dean lost Skye.


Title: Losing Skye

Author: MissAnnThropic

Spoilers: set in the Skyeverse (surrounding my fic "Wild by Skye")

LiveJournal: miss_annthropic(dot)livejournal(dot)com

Summary: The night that Dean lost Skye.

Timeline: See the last chapter of "Wild by Skye" for a chronological listing of Skyeverse fics to know where exactly this falls in the timeline. Or, you know, just read the fic and figure it out! Or eat pie. I know which one Dean would vote for.

Disclaimer: None of it's mine. I'm just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching DVDs of her favorite shows :(

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Dean walked naked through the streets of town. His muscles ached from the burden he had been carrying for miles. His vision blurred with tears. His lungs were burning. Breathing hurt. His heart beating hurt. Tonight, just living was a raw nerve ending, making the moonlight burn like the summer sun and the air scour like a windstorm sanding bones clean.

Dean choked on a sob and clutched the dead wolf tighter against his chest. Skye… his beautiful, wild Skye, lifeless in his arms. The night that had once been their secret lover was now a cruel beast, staring with one half-closed eye as Dean slowly carried his love through the dark streets.

Dean felt himself stretched thin, on the verge of flying apart. Inside his chest a rage was waiting to be born; he could feel it hibernating underneath the shock and sorrow. He would explode, sooner or later.

But not before he took her home.

Everything else moved to the background as Dean carried Skye's body in his arms. His hands were tacky with her blood. Her fur was matted and her head lolled, moving side to side with every step he took. He tried to walk without jarring her, without making her head swing like a pendulum, but he couldn't walk that smoothly. More than once he had to stop and just hold her until she was still, because he would give anything for her to move, but he couldn't stand the lifeless sway of her head. It threatened to push him over the edge.

Dean carried Skye past a lamppost. He glanced down at her turned neck. The lamplight caught on the curve of her eye, fixed open below the hole in her skull.

It made him stagger and stop. He clenched his eyes shut. He clung to Skye, pulled her close and tried to force away the image of a glassy, cold stare. He desperately pulled forth memories of Skye's warm gaze. He fought for breath.

Her dead weight was surrendering the body warmth Dean had slept against so many times. So many times and not nearly enough. Her body in his arms was growing cold.

Dean sucked in a few deep breaths. He caught hints of her scent, familiar and pleasant, laced with the sharp metallic smell of blood.

Before he knew he was falling, Dean found himself on one knee on the pavement. He barked in anguish and surprise when he hit ground. He clutched Skye. He couldn't drop her. He wouldn't.

He knelt shaking in the street with her body in his arms.

Slowly, he rose to his feet. He kept on walking.

He didn't remember most of the walk to the home of the Lauchlans. It passed in a blur, foggy and buried beneath the thread of Skye's coat between his sticky fingers.

Dean stumbled numbly to the porch steps of Skye's parents' house. The motion-sensor turned on the porch light. The brightness momentarily blinded Dean and he blinked. He tried to carry Skye up the steps, but his body just stopped working.

Slowly, Dean sank to the foot of the steps, Skye held against his chest. He bowed his head and waited for an end. A lessening of the pain, something to ease the vice around his chest.

He had come to bring Skye home, but the last few steps to her parents' door were the longest miles.

The world existed around him through a looking glass. The grass beneath him wasn't real, nor was the light from the porch, the sound of a door opening… even Jaina's voice, first confused then stricken, was muffled through the unreality that stood between Dean and life. The only thing that was real was Skye, limp in his hold.

Suddenly she was being taken away from him. Dean stiffened and cried out in protest, fingers tight in Skye's coat. He couldn't let her go. Not his Skye.

Somehow a panicked and tearful woman's voice got through to him, just barely, and he looked up. He saw Skye's mother on the ground with him. Then, next to her, Skye's father. He was the one trying to take Skye.

It took all of Dean's will, but he opened his hands and let her go.

Skye's parents pulled their daughter's body to them. They were crying, wailing, but Dean was dislocated from it. It was only a matter of inches in front of him, but he couldn't reach their reality. There were other shadows forming people coming from the night, surrounding them, but they were just colors and shapes. Not people. Not real.

As if when Skye was taken from him, the last shred holding him to earth was lost. Dean looked down at his hands, covered in blood and limp in his naked lap.

Jaina and Ramon's voices began to bleed into one buzzing sound. There were no words, just noise. Dean sensed his name was among those senseless sounds, but he couldn't know for sure. He didn't understand.

Then a hand touched his shoulder and the world slammed into him all at once. The night air freezing on his nude form, the tears hot and burning in his eyes, the knot in his throat that made him want to throw up, the ache in his lungs telling him to scream, the smell of Skye and blood.

"_NO_!" Dean yelled and jerked back. He struggled to his feet and backed away.

Faces came at him, eyes and gaping mouths.

Dean turned and ran.

He pounded down the street full tilt. The pavement tore the soles of his feet. He didn't care. He ran, harder and faster than he had ever run in his life. Like the memories were chasing him, and if only he ran far and fast enough it would stop being true.

Dean streaked past dark yards and houses with windows glowing gold. He wanted to break them all. Warm light had no right existing in a world without Skye.

When his human form began to tire, Dean flung himself up and out with reckless abandon. He came to earth again in lupus form.

He ran, ears flat and body bending, coiling then unleashing with earth-engulfing strides. He had to go faster, farther, because Skye's blood was still in his nostrils.

Town became woodlands. Dean raced past trees, over uneven ground without caution or care.

He didn't know where he was going until he got there. When he reached the clearing he stopped dead in his tracks. In the night, the creek where he and Skye had lapped drinks after a run was a silver-stranded snake in the grass. The trees were whispering in the wind, sometimes accented with crickets and cicadas.

Dean stood panting, his body trembling, and could not move. He was supposed to meet Skye here. She had never come. He'd finally gone looking for her.

And found her, by the road.

But he was supposed to meet her _here_. He had to wait for her.

A sudden weight slammed into Dean and sharp teeth sank into his shoulder. Dean went down in a heap with his attacker attached.

Reflex made him fight off the aggressor. The struggle to break free was fierce. Dean felt his skin tear and blood fly, but he couldn't feel it. It was wrapped up in the unrealness of a world without Skye. Dean fought back, first on instinct, then with fervor. All the rage and anger and helplessness in him became a monster that overtook him. Dean lunged and twisted, teeth closing over furry body parts. He bit down and tasted blood, felt the jolt of pain from his enemy, but it was _not enough_. He still hurt and _felt_, and he would tear this other wolf apart until he didn't anymore.

The two wolves clashed in a frenzy. They were both like demons, ruthless and furious, out for blood.

But Dean had just carried his mate's corpse. His rage consumed the world. Within moments, the other wolf was struggling to escape Dean's wrath.

With a jerk and twist, the second wolf broke free of Dean and jumped out of range. The two wolves, lips curled to bare dangerous teeth, stared hotly at one another.

That was when Dean finally recognized his attacker. Jeremy. Skye's childhood friend. In another life, he might feel guilty for knowing it had been Skye's friend he'd just tried to kill. But not here or now.

Somewhere, in the back of Dean's mind, he knew Jeremy had been one of those faces that emerged from the night around the Lauchlan home. Jeremy knew Skye was gone.

Jeremy snarled and snapped at Dean, then swayed when the injuries he sustained in their fight made him weaken. Jeremy backed off, glowered, and turned.

Dean didn't want to face being a man, but he felt his body's need to heal, too. Reluctantly, he turned.

Then Dean and Jeremy were crumpled on the forest floor staring at each other as men.

Jeremy's face was red and his body wracked with sobs. He cried openly, his agony so fresh, and he glared up at Dean with a tear-streaked face. "_You killed her_!"

Dean swallowed. "Car… it was… a _car_…"

Jeremy shook his head and sobbed.

"I would never hurt her," Dean croaked. He remembered Skye's broken body by the roadside. His stomach clenched and he turned his head and retched.

"You got her killed," Jeremy wailed. "This is your fault!"

Dean drew away from the puddle of vomit and flinched under the words. Jeremy wasn't blaming Dean for being the one behind the wheel. He was blaming Dean for loving Skye, for having her love him.

Had Dean left Eclipse River after the job, Skye would be alive. If he'd taken her from Eclipse River when she'd agreed to leave with him, she'd be alive. If they'd left _yesterday,_ she would be alive.

She was dead because of everything Dean had and had not done.

"I begged her to stay away from you," Jeremy cried. "I told her…! Why wouldn't she listen?!"

Dean's chest hurt. Pain raced through him, liquid fire in his veins. "_I'm sorry_…"

"Screw you! Why couldn't you have stayed away from her?!" Jeremy bellowed.

Dean realized he felt cold. Bone-deep, hopelessly cold. "I loved her," he whispered. His hands were numb. He couldn't make his body move.

Jeremy choked on a laugh. "Why did she have to love you?" he asked, his voice turning frail and shattered.

"I don't know…" Dean croaked. The ground was spinning. The sky was screaming at him in a thousand languages, confusing and disorienting.

Jeremy stood shakily and sniffed. "I ought to kill you."

Dean lolled his head up and rolled his eyes toward Jeremy. The other lycan seemed to list first to the left, then the right. "Why don't you?" Dean asked weakly as he fought to focus.

Jeremy let loose a strangled laugh. "_Because_ she loved you."

Without another word, Jeremy left.

Dean was alone in the clearing.

The ground rose up toward him and Dean collapsed on to his side. He drew up his knees and tucked his arms, curling himself into a fetal position on the grass. He'd never been so cold, and he didn't care. His body shook. His skin tingled with the icy sensation washing over it, but Dean couldn't make himself move.

Skye was gone.

The only warmth Dean felt was from the tears that tracked down his temple and the bridge of his nose.

He couldn't imagine the sun could find a world without Skye, but he imagined morning would come. Eventually.

He had no concept how he would do it, but when morning came then Dean would have to pull himself up from the ground and learn how to go on without his beautiful Skye.

END

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A/N: So, obviously I have a ridiculous number of ficlets set in the Skyeverse, and a full-length fic in its own right with Wild by Skye. Now, I have some really awesome readers doing artwork for the Skyeverse, and put the two together and methinks that almost justifies a website all its own for the Skyeverse. It would have all the fics (mine and anyone else's who might want to play in the Skyeverse with me), artwork (mine and that of others), and the videos I've made to go along with the Skyeverse. Now I just need to know if there would be any interest from y'all in something like that. What do you guys think?

Thanks for reading!


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